Rose Kemp

“Violence”
from the album Hand Full of Hurricanes
2007
iTunes

MP3 – “Violence” [right-click/save-as]

They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But they might have to rethink that saying in the case of Rose Kemp. True, the 22-year-old followed in her parents’ footsteps by becoming a musician. But this daughter of British folk-rock royalty (Maddy Prior and Rick Kemp, both from the strictly traditional band Steeleye Span) allows nothing “ye olde” in her sound.

Avoiding Celtic reels and ballads, Kemp’s stateside debut, A Hand Full of Hurricanes, provides its own twist on the creative abrasion and mood swings of classic art-rock. Think King Crimson, but deformed by the modern influence of P.J. Harvey.

The cut “Violence” starts out with Kemp’s haunting voice wafting over a strict, ticking beat, only to escalate into blasts of hellish noise that recall the stentorian alarm of either “The Court of the Crimson King” or any cut by the Mars Volta. Dissonance plays a key part on Hurricanes, though it often trades off with surprisingly gorgeous little tunes. “Tiny Flower” takes a twist on her mom’s beloved a cappella style, braiding its own pure, vocal round.

As you can imagine, Kemp wasn’t always so bold, or original. At first she seemed destined to trace the style of her parents, in the manner of another celebrated child of Brit-folk deities, Eliza Carthy (daughter of Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson). As a teen, Kemp wrote two songs that appeared on a solo album by mother Maddy. At 20, she cut a solo album, released only in the U.K., that was close to common folk.

Though Hurricanes strays far from that mold, Kemp shares with her heritage a flair for doomy vocals and spooky chord changes. What makes the CD so potent is that it takes that stern old style to a scary, compelling and thoroughly contemporary place of its own.